


It's My House!

by movieaddictdoctor



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fluff, Maria has friends because I love her, Maria is an FBI agent, Natasha is a ghost, One Shot, ghost au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 13:56:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20640287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/movieaddictdoctor/pseuds/movieaddictdoctor
Summary: After an investigation gone wrong, Maria gets assigned to the suburbs of New Jersey. Housing market is in shambles, and when she finds one this cheap, she can't resist. However, the house comes with a resident spirit.





	It's My House!

**Author's Note:**

> All I can say is that I love writing ridiculous one shots.

Maria takes a step towards the back door, with the floorboards creaking under the weight. The door is a sliding one, and the only way to reach the backyard as her quick surveying of the area shows. She leans her head a little to get a better look, and it’s clear that no one paid special attention to this place in a while. Entire backyard is overflowing with weeds, and a couple broken chairs stand next to the house.

Her realtor, a tiny blonde woman by the name Karen is waiting behind her, closer to the main door of the house than anywhere else. Through the reflection on the glass door, Maria can see her twitching every once in a while and look at the ceiling. She doesn’t seem all too eager to be in this house, which is surprising to Maria considering the woman’s job.

Maria steps away from the back door and walks towards the fireplace. She already had a tour of the house, and now it’s decision time. She looks around the living room once again. There’s no wall between the kitchen and the living room, and the wallpaper is already half torn off. This place is in terrible condition, and it’s obvious that no one in their right mind would be interested in it.

“I’ll take it.” Maria finally says, causing Karen to stare at her with wide eyes.

“Are you sure?” Karen asks. “I have two more places I can show you. They’re a little out of your budget but they’d be...”

“No, this place is perfect for me.” Maria says before the woman can finish her sentence. She looks around the room again. “It needs a lot of work but I can handle that.”

“But... the previous owners are _only_ interested in selling.” Karen manages to say. “They’re not interested in rental offers.” she adds. “They’ve had problems with that before.” she murmurs the last part.

Maria narrows her eyes at that, then walks over to the kitchen counter where the information page about the house is waiting. She draws the page closer and glances at it. 

“Are you serious?” Maria chuckles to herself, the price is ridiculous considering the market. “Is this the actual price or is this some kind of joke?”

“That’s the correct price, yes.” Karen nods, clutching her files tighter.

“This is less than what I’d pay renting any of the places you showed me.” Maria stares at Karen again.

“That is true, but...”

“Is there a problem, Miss Jameson? Do you not want me to buy this place or something?”

Karen sighs before replying. “You’re not from around here, are you?” 

Maria considers her answer. “I… I’m moving here for work.” 

“Huh.” Karen nods, and why she had an offer on this house, which had been on the market for the last five years makes itself clear. “Well, the thing is, all of the previous tenants had complaints about this place.”

“Don’t tell me it’s haunted.” Maria jokes to herself, but her smile falls when she notices the serious look on her realtor’s face. “Of course.” Maria shakes her head. “Miss Jameson, I can see your concerns, but I’m not gonna get kidnapped by ghosts.” she adds. “You have a fireplace that’s probably never been cleaned, floorboards from the nineteen fifties, an even older pipe system… I can go on but the thing is, this place isn’t haunted, it’s just old.”

Maria opens her suit jacket enough to show the FBI badge clasped on her belt. 

“And if really is haunted, I think I can protect myself.” She smiles.

“Now, where do I sign?”

-

Maria stands on the sidewalk in front of her newly bought house and smiles to herself. She’s had an interesting week, to say the least, and that’s not just about her realtor. She hasn’t seen any of her new neighbours, other than the one woman at the grocery store that dropped all her items and ran out of the store when Maria mentioned where she’s just moved in. 

This place seems to have a lot of history and superstitions with it, but Maria doesn’t care about those. 

A loud sound of breaking glass takes her attention, and she turns her head to the second floor. One of her friends leans over the edge with a sheepish smile on his face.

“Okay, that was my bad.” Bucky shouts waving one hand. “But the handle’s are way too fragile.”

“You are replacing that.” Maria shouts pointing at him and starts walking towards the house. 

A moving truck is parked next to the sidewalk, and Steve passes by her with a large box in his arms.

“Where do you want this Hill?”

“Ohm... Upstairs.” Maria replies and Steve turns to the stairs after a nod. “Rogers!” Maria calls after him. “Don’t let Barnes break any of my stuff.” 

“No promises.”

Maria shakes her head at that, but she’s not angry. In fact, she’s probably the happiest she’s been in the last two months, not that she’d admit that to any of these people. This move, or what can be more correctly described as banishment, wasn’t something she was excited about. To be assigned to the New Jersey office, while she was heading up a task force in New York is definitely a punishment, but she’s not as pessimistic about that as before. 

It’s hard to admit, but she needs the time away from the more stressful cases. And she needs time to herself. That’s also why she bought this house; every part of the house is a different project, and she’s been working on it whole week with the help of her friends. 

“How are we looking Danvers?” Maria slides the back door open, and steps outside while Carol stands up from where she was crouched down.

“Well Hill, you were right to call me.” Carol replies, wiping her hands on her work pants. 

“Oh wow...” Maria just now notices how different the backyard is from a week ago. “What did you do?” she asks, surprise apparent in her voice. “Do you have some type of superpower I don’t know about?”

“Believe me, there’s nothing I can’t do with these hands.” Carol smiles, waving her fingers.

“Eww gross.” Maria laughs at that. “Come on then, you deserve a drink.”

“Oh yes.” Carol takes off her gloves to put them in her pocket, edges dangling outside. “And let’s see what the boys were up to.”

-

They manage to move all the furniture in by the end of the day, and Maria decides to thank them with her signature barbeque. Bucky tries to sneak around her as she works the grill, but she says “It’s not done yet.” without looking, and he quickly goes back. Carol tries to bribe her with alcohol, which also doesn’t work. Steve carries the portable kitchen table they put in the garage the day before, and becomes the only person Maria allows to have the first piece of the sausages. She can hear him smugly whisper “And that’s how it’s done.”, and shakes her head with a smile.

It’s a warm afternoon, enough to allow them to stay outside, despite being almost winter. This is probably the one and only time they can do that, but Maria appreciates it nonetheless. Her friends are her only support system, and she’ll take any time she can spend with them. 

“To Hill’s freaky murder house!” Carol toasts lifting her glass in front of them.

“Hey, this is not a murder house.” Maria complains with her own glass in the air.

“Come on, you paid for it.” Steve chimes in. “No place is this cheap. Someone was definitely murdered here.”

“And that’s it, no more burgers for either of you.” Maria says pointing around the table.

“Hey, what did I do?” Bucky straightens innocently.

“You broke my window.” Maria replies turning to him.

“I replaced it.” Bucky counters. “And I got rid of the box of dead tarantulas in the attic.”

“Wait what? There was a box of tarantulas?” Maria raises her eyebrows in surprise. “Okay fine, you’re off the hook.”

“Oh that reminds me, we also found this weird looking box in the attic.” Steve leans down and procures the small tin box. “I cleaned it, don’t worry.”

“Everything here is weird looking Rogers, you have to be more specific.” Carol says and leans away from Maria’s glare while downing her glass.

“What’s this?” Maria takes the box. It’s engraved with two opposite triangles meeting in the middle. It’s colored black and red, so old but still in mint condition, and Maria assumes no one has touched it in a while. She tries to open the lid but it doesn’t work, so she grabs her knife to help her.

“Careful...” Steve says but it’s obvious he’s curious to see what’s inside.

“When am I not careful...” the lid snaps open and Maria narrowly escapes cutting her finger off. “Ah ha!”

A couple of trinkets; a delicate necklace with a green gem in the middle, and a matching ring fall on the table. Maria, turns down the tin to take a look at everything inside.

“Oh, I bet these are expensive.” Carol stands up and steps closer to Maria’s seat, then reaches the necklace.

“What’s that?” Bucky copies Carol’s moves and stands. 

Maria reaches the small papers and turns them over, to find black and white photographs that look as old as the house. She glances at one, then gives it to Bucky. 

“This one is in every picture.” Maria murmurs to herself then glances at the date scribbled on the bottom right corner. “Nineteen forty seven.”

“She’s beautiful.” Steve joins in, to be met with Bucky’s stare. “What? I’m married, not blind.” 

Maria can’t help but stare at the black and white picture. The woman is the focus of the photograph in her hand, in her short dress, shoulder length hair fixed in place by a delicate tiara. And she’s smiling. 

“She _is_ beautiful.” 

“What’re you gonna do with these?” Carol asks. She’s already on the verge of clasping the necklace around her neck.

“I don’t know.” Maria replies and finally turns to her friend. “But I _do_ know that there’s no way you’re leaving here with that.”

“That’s cruel, Hill.” Carol replies and reluctantly puts the necklace on Maria’s waiting palm. “That necklace and I have a connection.”

“Aren’t you afraid that it’s _‘cursed’_ or something?” Maria asks making quotation marks.

“Oh I’m a hundred percent sure that it is.”

“Whatever. These meant something to someone, even though it was a long time ago. They’re still important.”

“Oh wow, Hill is showing sentiment guys.” Bucky says, getting awarded with an elbow to the gut. 

“You guys are all assholes.” Maria places the contents of the box back, and everyone settles back to their seats.

Conversation easily picks up after that, with still way to many jokes about the house for Maria's taste, and she wonders if those will ever dry out. 

Her friends make this old house feel like home, even though it feels so soon to call it that. But the house no longer looks like it's going to break apart, the result of their team effort, and it's the best living situation she's had in her life, including her old apartment in New York. Her old neighbors were not too happy when she had to arrest them for doing drugs.

They talk about Carol's family, Monica's latest discoveries in science class, and Maria smiles with her glass in her hand. Her friend looks so proud, and even though she wonders if she'll ever get to be in her shoes, she's genuinely happy for her.

Bucky is still pissed at Steve for his 'beautiful' comment, and it's apparent for the rest of the night. They're actually always like that, which makes Maria envy that too.

The night comes to an end with Maria kicking them out before they attempt to help with the dishes too, and she makes sure to call them all rides. She waves at them from her door, then turns back inside. 

It's been a long day.

She takes the stairs and they creak with each step, but it's less than before thanks to Steve's handywork. She gets under her bed covers without bothering to change, and doesn't notice the way her curtains wave, despite all the windows being closed.

-

Maria starts work the following day. She's not cleared for fieldwork, and she surprisingly manages to take the news without shooting anyone. Still, her new coworkers give her a wide berth the following few days, after seeing how she left the director's office.

It's paperwork, all day every day, enough to make her head explode, and she takes her frustrations out of her new house. There's a draft coming from somewhere that she still hasn't figured out, and her bedroom only keeps getting cold, no matter what she does.

The microwave bing, bringing Maria out of her thoughts, and she takes her leftover lasagna then starts walking towards her office. Even though she's being punished, her rank remains, and the office, albeit small, is one of the perks. She takes quick and precise steps, because she doesn't want to get caught in weird attempts at small talk like the last time.

"Agent Hill!" Someone calls after her, and she sighs. Apparently, there's no escape.

"Agent Coulson." Maria turns around with a fake smile on her face, one foot inside her office. "How are you?"

"You remembered." Coulson smiles, referring to when they did a joined operation years ago. "I wanted to personally welcome you to our district." he says. "I would've found you before, but I just got back from the headquarters this morning."

"Thank you Coulson." Maria replies, she wasn't expecting that from someone she knew from so long ago. She takes the rest of the steps to her desk and puts down her plate.

"So, how are you settling in so far?" Coulson follows her but doesn't settle down. "It must be a big change from New York."

"It is, but this place is starting to grow on me."

"That bad huh?" Coulson has an understanding expression on his face.

Maria smiles at that. "Well, the move was easy." She admits. 

"Oh, you found a place already?" Coulson asks, with a little surprise behind it.

"I did yes." Maria replies, moving the papers on her desk absentmindedly. "Neighborhood is a but weird but at least they're not nosey." she says. "Come to think of it, I didn't actually see them all week."

"Do you mind me asking who was your realtor?" Coulson asks. "My boyfriend and I are looking for a new place, and we tried everywhere. It's all crazy expensive, or at the other end of town."

Maria opens a drawer and procures a small business card to give Coulson. "Her name is Karen. Just be warned, she was a little twitchy when it came to my place, it was like she didn't want to sell it to me." she says. "And she had this interesting idea that the house was haunted." She smiles at that again.

"Oh I remember her…" Coulson takes the card with a thoughtful expression. "Wait, are you talking about 23 Widow Drive?" 

"Yes… How did you know?" Maria asks, narrowing her eyes.

"I… nothing… it's nothing." Coulson replies, and starts to step backwards. "Thank you for the card Hill." With that, he hits the door with his back, then quickly scrambles away.

"You're welcome!" Maria shouts after him. 

_'Jersey people are certainly interesting.'_

-

Maria comes home with grocery bags in her arms and puts them away with a little background music. That's the thing she loves about living alone; she can do anything she wants, including listening to pop music on speakers.

She decides to cook a simple pasta with tomato sauce, and has to reignite the fire twice. It keeps randomly going out, which is something she has to look into in the weekend. 

She settles in front of the television with her plate in her lap, and her feet up on an ottoman. It's not like anyone is watching her. There's a women's basketball game on, and she quickly gets into the mood.

When it's time for bed, she checks the house one time to make sure all the doors are locked and goes upstairs. She doesn't notice the waving curtains, again.

-

A loud thud wakes Maria up in the middle of the night. Her eyes snap open, and she immediately reaches her handgun on the small dresser. There’s another thud, and Maria gets up with her gun aimed forward. She takes small steps towards the stairs, checking the corners, and slowly makes her way down.

The kitchen window is wide open, causing wind to come inside which in turn causes the kitchen cupboards to swing open, then close back up. Maria checks every part of the house before returning to the kitchen, then closes the window. She walks back to the cupboards, leaving her gun on the kitchen isle. She closes them too, and decides to go to bed, reasoning this incident with the old house and even older locks. She grabs her gun and turns towards the stairs, but becomes rooted on the spot.

_“Argh great. Another filthy squatter in my house.”_ the words come from a pale growing figure in front of her, and Maria aims her gun forward.

“Who are you? How did you get in here?” 

“Who am I?” the figure flows closer. “How dare you ask the greatest dancer in Jersey ‘who she is’?”

“Stop right there!” Maria unlocks the security on her gun.

“Right there?” the figure asks. “You can see where I am?”

“I said stop!” Maria shouts again when the figure comes closer, then through instinct, fires her gun.

It feels like one of those slow motion sequences, and Maria can swear she can see how the bullet moves, while knowing how ridiculous that sounds. There’s the familiar recoil, the bullet moving forward, but nothing happens to the figure in front of her. It goes through the woman like going through a mist, and lodges to one of the rails on the staircase.

“What the hell?” Maria asks in shock.

“Did you just shoot at me?” the woman asks too, angrier now.

“What the _hell_?” Maria shoots her gun again, then again, but the same thing happens each time.

“Hey, stop it with that!” the figure flows, _flows_ which Maria only just realizes, and passes through her. She feels like a bucket of ice has been dropped on her head. 

“What. the. hell?.” Maria feels the need to lean on the kitchen isle for support, while the figure appears in front of her, on the other side.

“And here I thought you knew more words.” the figure says, leaning on her elbows.

“You just… just… flew through me...” 

“Well, I do that a lot.” 

“Who? What? How?” Maria manages to say, because the questions in her head are firing away faster than she can form the words. 

“I told you who I am, the greatest dancer in all of Jersey.” the woman replies in a proud tone. “If you must know, Natasha Romanoff is the name.” she reaches a hand forward, and Maria reaches too, but her hand only goes through the other’s, with the same coldness as before.

“You...” Maria finally takes a good look at the figure in front of her. “You’re the woman from the photos.”

“Isn’t it enough that you’re butchering my house, and now you’re snooping around my personal belongings.” the anger in Natasha’s voice is clear, and it makes the pieces fall into place in Maria’s head. Natasha keeps referring to the house as _’mine’_. 

“This is not your house.” Maria gains her composure a little. Everything about this is weird, yet somehow she manages to focus. “I mean, not anymore I guess.”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Natasha replies.

“I don’t know.” Maria replies. “For all I know, I shouldn’t have had that last beer and my mind is playing tricks on me.”

That angers Natasha and she flows through Maria again, then settles on the counter top. “Oh I am very real.” she says, baring her teeth. “And you need to get the hell out of my frickin house.”

“Oh hell no.” Maria turns around. She’s not sure where this is coming from, but she finds herself feeling more confident. “I bought this place. It’s mine. I’ve spent my last savings and weeks to fix this place up.” she says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“We’ll see about that.” Natasha replies and disappears through the ceiling.

_‘This is a dream, right?’_ Maria thinks to herself while staring at the ceiling. _‘Right?’_

-

“Ahh!” Maria screams as she sees Natasha’s pale figure staring at her on the edge of her bed. _‘This is definitely not a dream.’_

“Wondered when you’d finally wake up.” Natasha says, crossing her legs. She’s sitting on Maria’s bed, in what Maria assumes is a shirt and pants, but there’s no indication on her mattress.

“You’re still here.” Maria says, leaning back on her elbows.

“So are you.”

“You’re going to make my life a living hell, aren’t you?” to that Natasha smiles.

\- 

How her life came to this, Maria has no idea. One minute she was cooking to herself, now, she’s using the FBI database to look up ‘apparitions’. She can’t believe what’s happening, and she can’t really talk to her friends after last time. She’s suffered through their ‘haunted house’ jokes for weeks, and she knows they’d only get worse. It’s not because she’s doubting her sanity, but because of Natasha’s surprise to when Maria first saw her. Which means, Maria’s probably the only one that can see her.

She checks her office door every time someone walks by the glass, because she doesn’t want to get caught looking up paranormal events. She searches witness reports, camera recordings, sites of crackpot scientists… All of which looks makebelieve to her. 

But there’s one thing very real waiting for her in her house.

It turns out Natasha has no filter, and she’s every where. In the kitchen, garage, shower… Which is why Maria starts to use the buro’s gym more often. She’s comfortable with her body, that’s not the problem, Natasha looking her up and down with a smirk is.

It takes a while to get used to. At first Maria tries fixing everything Natasha does. She closes the snapping windows, turns off the tv when it starts acting up, but that only encourages Natasha. So she tries something else. She completely ignores her.

And that works.

Her friends come over a few more times, and Maria’s suspicions are confirmed when Natasha flows through them, but they can’t see her.

“This place is freezing, Hill.” Bucky exclaims while holding onto his jacket.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Barnes.” Maria shrugs, throwing a deadly glare at Natasha. “The heating is all turned up.”

Bucky stares at the empty space Maria’s staring, and has chills again. 

-

It’s Friday night, and Maria can’t believe she’s doing this. She’s on a date, for the first time in six months, and she’s actually having fun. It’s a blind date set by Carol, so she didn’t have her hopes up. But this woman, Helen Cho, who works in the Forensics Department, surprises her. She’s not the stuck up doctor Maria was expecting, which is why Maria invites her back to her house. She hasn’t seen Natasha the last couple of days, and she assumes the coast is clear.

“Just a nightcap?” Helen smiles and closes the car door.

“Just a nightcap.” Maria smiles too with the house keys in her hand. She opens the door. “After you.”

“Such a gentleman.” Helen passes by her and Maria closes the door.

“So I’m told.” Maria takes of her jacket and puts it on the hangar next to the door, while Helen puts hers on one of the chairs around the kitchen isle with her scarf. “What would you like?” Maria asks as she walks into the living room. She’s wearing a black suit, and she opens one of the top buttons as she walks towards the kitchen area. “I have red, white or scotch?” 

“Red for me please.” Helen replies and looks around the room. “This is a really nice place.”

“Thank you.” Maria gives her a glass and takes hers. “Carol helped me fix it up actually.”

“Oh, she would.” Helen takes a sip of her glass and walks over to the large couch near the fireplace. She kicks off her shoes and settles down with her legs under her. “Her and Maria helped me with my bookcase.”

“That’s lesbians for you.” Maria jokes and settles opposite to Helen on the couch. 

“I must admit, I’m curious to find out how you all know each other.”

“Well, long story short, Carol and I were in the military together.” Maria says. “One time we were stateside, the buro made us an offer, and we both accepted.”

“Why didn’t you stay in the military?” Helen asks curiously. 

“I guess… I didn’t believe in it anymore.” Maria find it easy to be honest about that. “And I felt that I could do more good here.”

“Well, I’m certainly glad that you’re here.” Helen smiles, and places her glass on the small table. She slowly, and intentionally starts getting closer to Maria on the couch and Maria places her glass on the table too.

They meet in the middle, and what starts out as a small kiss turns into something more as Helen places her hand behind Maria’s neck… until the bathroom door snaps closed. 

The sound makes Helen jump back. “What was that?”

“Oh, just the wind.” Maria replies. She know exactly what that was, but she also has very little care about that right now. She tries to go back in for another kiss, but Helen leans back when the door crashes again.

“It happened again.” Helen says, and Maria notices Natasha’s figure leaning on the wall, watching them with a raised eyebrow. 

“It’s nothing, Helen.” Maria sends a glare at Natasha. “This is just an old house, it happens sometimes.”

There’s the cold draft again, coming from nowhere, and that’s the last drop that kills the mood of the night.

“This was… this was fun.” Helen quickly gathers her jacket and scarf. “But I have to take off.”

“Let me call you a cab at least.” Maria follows after her with her phone.

“Thanks.” Helen replies and she’s at the door. The taxi comes within a minute, perks of being in law enforcement, and Helen quickly gets in. The car drives off, leaving a frustrated Maria at the curb.

“I thought you were gone.” Maria turns back after closing the front door. “I was planning a celebration party.”

“And miss all this fun? Come on.” Natasha shrugs.

“Why are you doing this man?” Maria groans uncharacteristically.

“If she can’t handle this, she’s not the girl for you.”

“And you know the right girl for me?” Maria says. “Ghost that came with my house?”

“My house.” Natasha murmurs her correction. 

“Whatever, I’m going to bed.” Maria starts walking upstairs. “If a bright light happens to appear in front of you, please follow it.”

-

It’s a month later when things take a complete turn. It happens overnight, but weirdly neither Maria or Natasha can complain.

It’s two months into their living situation, where Maria tries to hold on to her last shred of common sense, while Natasha does everything she can to run her out.

Whimpering sounds coming from Maria’s bedroom take Natasha’s attention, and she flies towards it, hoping to catch the woman in an embarrassing situation. However, her smirk instantly falls when she realizes what’s happening: Maria’s having a nightmare. Even though she can’t sleep anymore, she’d still recognize them anywhere. 

“Hill.” Natasha tries. “Hill!” she says flowing closer to the bed, but Maria is still tossing and turning.

“No… no.” Maria murmurs in her sleep. “Carter, don’t...”

“Shit.” Natasha exclaimes. She’s not sure why she does it, or why she’s feeling close to this woman, one she sees as an unwelcome guest like all the others, but she feels the intense need to bring Maria out of that nightmare. She flows through the bedroom door, and causes it to close with a loud thud, loud enough to wake Maria up.

“No!” Maria screams sitting on the bed, and it takes her a moment to differentiate between the dream and the real world. It’s been a while she had any nightmares, and she doesn’t want to admit to being caught off guard, even though it’s an unattainable goal.

“You’re okay.” Natasha flows closer, and her tone is unlike any Maria’s heard from her. “You had a nightmare.”

“Yeah I know. I was in it.” Maria snaps back, and she’s surprised by how she immediately regrets it. “You woke me up?” she asks, looking towards Natasha’s figure flowing next to the window.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.” Maria nods. Natasha can see how the woman genuinely means it.

“No problem.” Natasha tries a smile. “What… What was it about?”

Maybe it’s the fact that she just had a nightmare and her usual defences are down. Or it’s the dark night, making it easy to talk when you can’t fully see the things around you. Or that she’s been carrying this with her for too long, and it just finally needs to be let out.

“It…” Maria takes a deep breath. “It was about my partner.”

“Partner as in...” Natasha asks curiously.

“We worked together in New York.” Maria straightens and leans her back to the bed frame. “There was an ambush.” Maria’s looking at her toes under the comforter. “It was my fault.” she shakes her head. “I was too obsessed with catching the guy that I didn’t check the lead like I always did.”

“What happened to her?” Natasha’s closer now, and settles next to Maria’s feet on the bed.

“She got shot.” Maria looks up to find Natasha intently watching her. “Her vest caught it but still… The whole thing was a bust. If backup had come a minute later, it would’ve been a lot worse.”

“But it’s not.” Natasha has a small smile. “And maybe that’s enough. It could’ve gone worse, but it didn’t. She’s still here, you’re still here...”

“That actually helps a little.” Maria has a small smile too. “God, I can’t believe I’m taking life advice from a ghost.”

“I don’t know if I’m that.” Natasha’s smile turns into a thoughtful one.

“If… If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to you?” Maria watches Natasha for an answer. “How did you become... this?”

“This bright and charming figure?” Natasha indicates herself. “Well, the thing is… I don’t know.”

“Do you mean you don’t remember, or?..”

“Oh my memory is perfect, Agent Hill.” Natasha replies. “I remember everything. I was waiting for my driver to come pick me up for golf club in this house. It was Saturday, and I’d just finished a set in Broadway. But my driver never came.” she points to herself. “And I got stuck with this ridiculous attire for the rest of eternity.”

“It’s a good thing you can pull it off.” Maria finds herself saying. _‘Did I just flirt with a ghost?’_

“I shall take that as a compliment.” Natasha smiles, and she catches the time on Maria’s alarm clock. “Now, enough chit chat. You have work in the morning.” She gets up from the bed and starts flowing away. “Try to get some sleep.”

-

Natasha stops bothering her anymore. When Maria asks why, she just says it took to much of her time and she has better things to do. Maria reluctantly accepts that answer, because she can finally shower at home again, and she's not going to give that up by pissing off the resident spirit. Still, neither of them stops referring to the house as theirs.

Work is going too dull for Maria’s taste, apparently nothing of big scale happens here, or the more likely reason is that she’s still under supervision. She finishes most of her work before lunch time, so she decides to do some extracurriculars to pass the time.

Maria draws her keyboard closer to herself, and starts with the FBI database. ‘Natasha Romanoff’. No search results come up other than a warning that files older than 30 years haven’t been digitized yet. She closes the tab, grabs her jacket draped behind her desk and leaves the office.

“I’m just gonna take a walk.” Maria says when Coulson turns towards the sound.

She calls the elevator and presses on the basement button. Sliding doors of the elevator opens, and the lights start turning on with each step she takes. It takes her a while to dig up files going back to 1945, with the help of the mean looking old lady in charge of them. She loads the microfilm, and starts looking around.

It takes rest of the day, and she comes up empty.

-

“I wasn’t expecting you this early.” Natasha says when Maria enters the living room. “You realize it’s Friday night, right?” she’s smiling, and Maria wants to return the smile, but she’s feeling like she failed her, even though Natasha never asked her to find out what happened. It’s just that Maria was still hoping to surprise her with whatever information she could find.

“You kinda killed my romantic prospects, if you remember.” Maria goes for a joke.

“That’s on you.” Natasha replies. “You cops are so superstitious.”

Maria raises her eyebrows at that, indicating Natasha’s pale figure hovering a good inch away from the floor. 

“What? You’re blaming me?” Natasha asks with mocked shock. “I’m affronted, truly.”

“You should be.” Maria smiles for real this time. She has a sudden idea, and grabs a bag of popcorn from a drawer then puts it into the microwave.

-

“Eww, why does he keep saying that?” Natasha asks pointing at the television. They’re sitting on the couch, with a bowl of popcorn on Maria’s lap.

“Because they _‘were’_ on a break.” Maria pops another handful of popcorns into her mouth.

“No they were not!” Natasha exclaims. “That blonde one just said maybe.” 

“No she wanted a break and she got it.” Maria smiles. It’s not that she believes it, but Natasha started getting more and more engaged in her Friends rerun, and it turns out she likes to mess with Natasha’s head by saying the complete opposite things to hers. 

Kernels at the bottom of Maria’s bowl of popcorn pops and flies on her lap, startling Maria “You deserved that one.”

“I did.” Maria replies and blows a breath from the corner of her mouth, and a popcorn attached to her hair falls.

This becomes a continuous thing, watching television together. Maria can’t believe how much she’s enjoying it, or that she’s looking forward to coming home every day.

-

Maria starts spending a lot more time in the buro’s archives. There’s nothing, until her public information request, which she made under Bucky’s name gets answered, and she receives a bunch of new documents from the city. It’s about the house, going as far back as to it’s construction, and immediately, the name from 1938 takes her attention. The company who built it: Rumlow Industries.

It’s the first lead, the only lead she has, and Maria feels the heat rising up from inside her.

She’s very familiar with the name. 

Rumlow Industries still stand to this day as one of the largest companies in the tristate area. And, they’re the reason she’s banished to the suburbs. 

It all started with chatter between her informants, that Rumlow Industries had been experimenting on human subjects for decades. She didn’t believe it at first, until one of her informants disappeared into thin air. The buro’s director agreed to her request for an investigation, but when time passed by with no more leads and she became more and more obsessed with the case, it all came apart with her partner getting shot.

The CEO Brock Rumlow, wasn’t too happy to learn he was under federal investigation.

“This can’t be a coincidence.” Maria murmurs to herself. Her office door opens after a cursory knock, and she quickly swipes all the documents to one side in a poor attempt to hide them.

“Agent Hill, nice to see you’re settling in.” Director Fury walks inside and she gets up to greet him.

“Thank you sir.” Maria shakes his hand with a strong grip.

“I wanted to personally tell you that you’re off desk duty, starting next Monday.”

“Really?” Maria asks before she can rein in her surprise.

“Yes Agent.” Fury nods, with his hands in the pockets of his pants. “We agreed that leaving one of our best agents on the bench for this long isn’t going to help us keep our country safe.”

“Does that mean I’m being transferred back to the New York office?” There’s hesitation behind that question, almost as if she doesn’t want to leave just yet.

“Oh no. That decision was final.” Fury smiles. “We want you to oversee our operations here, starting with Agent Coulson’s smuggling operation.”

“Sir, do you really want me to take over a squabble between two rival coffeehouses?”

“No, just oversee it. Make sure everything is done according to rules.” he replies with a knowing smile. “I know you need time for another investigation.” Fury indicates the haphazardly thrown documents from the city. 

A non verbal communication passes between them, and Maria stares at the man in front of her. He can’t be helping her, right? 

Right?

“Be careful, Agent.” Fury says, and walks out of the room, leaving Maria in a swimming haze of thought.

-

“I think that cup is full.” Carol whispers behind Maria as coffee starts spilling onto the break room floor.

“Oh shit.” Maria puts the pot on the counter and reaches for the napkins Carol’s holding out for her. “Thanks.”

“What’s going on with you?” Carol asks with an amused expression. She hasn’t seen Maria this clumsy before.

“Nothing, just...” Maria replies instinctively, then glances at Carol, one of the only people in the world that she trusts. “I...” she whispers, indicating Carol to come closer. “I think Fury wants me to look into Rumlow Industries.”

“What?” Carol says in a voice that’s certainly not a whisper, and earns herself a hush. “Sorry, what?” she asks in a whisper this time. It’s a good thing the break room is empty. “He transferred you here for doing exactly that. Why would he do that if he wanted you to keep looking?”

“Do you think I know anything that man has in his mind?” Maria whispers back. “His secrets have secrets.”

“Are you sure?” Carol asks, concern seeping into her voice. “Rumlow has friends everywhere. It’s dangerous.” She raises an eyebrow. 

“I’m guessing that’s why Fury wants _me_ to do it.” Maria looks at her in the eyes. “I’m already a disgrace to the agency, I’m expendable.” Rumlow made sure of that with all the headlines he published in his newspaper. 

Carol wants to comfort her friend, but right now, she knows Maria would appreciate her help a lot more.

“What do you need?”

-

Carol drives to Maria’s place after work, with copious amount of take out, and they start throwing ideas around over Chinese food. Natasha pops in after a while when Carol goes to the bathroom to clean up. 

“Boo!” Natasha shouts right behind Maria, startling her.

“When are you going to stop doing that?” Maria groans, and turns back to her file. 

“Probably never.” Natasha replies and comes closer to Maria’s seat. “Wait, I know that man.” she starts hovering closer to the kitchen isle, where Maria’s old files are open all around.

“Yeah, you probably saw him on tv or something.” Maria replies, not looking up from the file in her hands. “He loves giving interviews to the press.”

“No.” Natasha replies. “I know him. I met with him.”

“You must be mistaking him with someone.”

“That box you were snooping around in, it had pictures, yes?” Natasha asks.

Maria looks up this time, as Carol comes back from the bathroom. “Who’re you talking to?”

“No one, I was just reading this outloud.” Maria quickly tries to recover, while looking between Natasha and Carol. Carol follows her eyesight to an empty space.

“Maria!” Natasha says next to her, using her actual name for the first time. “The box! Go get it!”

“Right.” Maria nods and walks towards the fireplace. There’s a bookshelf above it, and the box is there.

“What’s going on Hill?” Carol watches her curiously as Maria returns to the kitchen isle with the tin box in her hands. 

“I don’t know.” Maria murmurs and opens the box. She’s not sure why she’s following Natasha’s instructions in the first place, and she knows how she must look to Carol now. She grabs the pictures and puts them all on the table.

Carol walks over to her and looks at the pictures behind her shoulder. “What are we looking for?”

Natasha points at one of the pictures after a moment, the one after one of her bale shows. She’s accepting a bouquet from a man in a suit, one of the new up and coming industrialists in Brooklyn.

“Oh my god.” Maria exhales.

“What, what is it?” Carol leans closer. 

Maria reaches for one of the files near her and opens it up. There’s Brock Rumlow’s picture attached on the top right corner.

“It’s him.” Maria whispers. The two pictures are right next to each other, and there’s no mistaking one of the other.

“What the hell?” Carol whispers in shock. “How’s that even possible?”

“That bastard did this to me, I’m sure of it.” Natasha says behind gritted teeth, and the light start to flicker.

“You don’t know that.” Maria says, trying to calm Natasha down, but the flicking starts to intensify. “Natasha!”

Natasha realizes what she’s doing, and the lights go back to normal. “Sorry.” 

“Okay what’s going on with you?” Carol asks, turning her head to Maria. “Why do you keep staring over there? And who are you talking too?”

“I told you, no one.” Maria tries, but it’s too weak to believe anymore.

“I don’t think she believes you Hill.” Natasha says.

“Do you really think I believe you?” Carol crosses her arms.

“Told you.”

Maria looks between Carol and Natasha again. She has no idea where to start, so she just starts with the first thing that comes to her mind.

“So...” Maria says. “It turns about that you guys were right. This place _is_ haunted.”

-

“Let me get this straight...” Carol waves one of Natasha’s photos in her hand. “You can see this woman, who’s standing right there...“ she vaguely points at Natasha’s direction. “And this is her house.” she waves her finger to indicate the room. 

“Yes.” Maria nods, preparing herself for what comes next, which is something she’s not expecting.

“Shit.” Carol drops her hands. “I owe Rogers a hundred bucks.”

“Wait what?”

“Yeah, we kinda have a bet going on to see when you’d realize it yourself.” Carol replies staring at Maria’s shocked expression. “Come on, there was even all these creepy writing when we ripped off the old wallpaper. This place is textbook, Hill.”

“Then why didn’t you guys tell me?!”

“We did!” Carol counters. “You didn’t believe us!”

“Okay, since we got all this cleared...” Natasha flows to hover between them, even though Maria is still the only one that can notice her. “What’s our plan?”

Carol notices Maria’s focus shifting. “Oh, what is she saying?”

“She’s asking what our plan is.” Maria replies.

“Good question.” Carol nods towards Natasha, missing the mark by a couple inches. “Does she remember anything about him?”

“Do you rem...” Maria starts to be interrupted by Natasha.

“I can hear her.” Natasha replies. “He was working for his father at the time.” she says. “He invited me to their house outside the city.”

Maria relays Natasha’s words as she continues. “They were celebrating their last factory opening in Philly.”

“The one by the river.” Carol joins in.

“How do you know that?” Maria asks curiously. 

“What?” Carol shrugs. “I watch documentaries.”

“Oh I’m sure _you_ watch them while your wife snores on the couch.”

“Hey, that happened one time.”

Maria shakes her head at that. “Doesn’t matter.” she says. “I looked into every building under Rumlow’s name. It’s all by the book.”

“Huh, I think the house belonged to his mom’s side of the family.” Natasha says absentmindedly, not realizing how Maria turns her head to stare at her. “What?”

“Do you know the address?” Maria asks. 

“I can point it on a map.”

Maria quickly walks towards her computer and opens up a map of the tristate area while Carol and Natasha follows. 

“Hmm, that place.” Natasha points on the computer.

Maria crosses the kitchen isle while looking at all the files. 

“Let me guess...” Carol smiles.

“We didn’t search that one.” Maria feels the hope growing in her chest. “Because we didn’t know it existed.”

“It’s been like seventy years.” Carol tries to reason. “It’s probably gone.”

“Only one way to know.” Maria replies.

“Road trip!”

-

Natasha settles on the back seat while Carol drives, and she randomly changes the radio to mess with them. It’s the middle of the night, and the roads are empty. It helps them make short work of the road, until they reach the edge of the forest, and it starts to get bumpy.

They find the house with Natasha’s instructions, and Carol stops the car a good distance away.

“What’s our plan?” Carol asks.

Maria reaches inside her jacket and procures a sunglass, then puts it on.

“I meant about the job, not fashion.” Carol groans. 

“Who said anything about fashion?” Maria smiles, and presses on the glass frame. It lights up, and after a retinal scan, starts working.

“What are those?” Natasha curiously leans in between the two seats.

“This my friends, is the latest addition to the buro’s inventory.” Maria looks towards the house, which is actually a mansion. 

“I thought it was still being tested.”

“I fast tracked it.” Maria shrugs. “Huh.”

“What do you see?” Carol and Natasha ask at the same time.

“There’s an underground structure.” Maria following the structure with her eyes. “Goes for at least three floors.”

“How do we get in?”

“I might help with that.” Natasha smiles.

-

Thanks to Natasha’s _‘powers’_, they manage to get inside, after Natasha short-circuits the electrical doors. There’s almost no security in the old house, and they pass the halls covered with what Carol cleverly points out as _‘creepy ass portraits’_, to reach an elevator. Maria’s glasses confirm it has access to the underground levels, and they take it.

Something starts nagging at Natasha once they’re on the elevator. It feels like waking up, or part of her is waking up from a long sleep, but it’s been so long that she’d forgot it ever existed. There’s a pull, so strong that it’s making her ache, but that can’t be right. It’s been so long since she actually felt any of those things.

Elevator doors slide open to reveal an endless looking room, and Maria walks out first, aiming her gun forward, then Carol follows.

“We have to call backup.” Maria manages a whisper. Any tone louder feels wrong, disrespectful. It takes her a moment to realize why.

The room is surrounded by large glass cylinders, filled with a light blue liquid, and in them, there are bodies.

“I’m calling Rogers.” Carol whispers, and reaches for her phone. This is not at all what she was expecting to find.

Natasha starts hovering between the cylinders, looking at each one, and flashes of memories start crossing her mind. She knows now. 

She follows the pull she’s feeling, and Maria follows after her. 

“This...” Natasha whispers, then stops in her tracks. 

Maria looks up to find out why Natasha is rooted on the spot. “It’s you.”

Natasha slowly gets closer to the cylinder. Lights on the ceiling gets brighter with each inch. It _is_ her, or her body. Floating in front of her. She gets closer, reaches her hand forward…

A lot of things happen at once. Natasha’s hand touches the glass, _actually, physically_ connects with the cold hard surface, the room drowns in white causing Carol and Maria to cover their eyes with their elbows. Then, Natasha’s figure in front of the cylinder disappears, and inside, her eyes snap open.

“Natasha!” Maria runs towards the glass, and sees the fear in Natasha’s eyes; she can’t breathe.

“Oh no!” Carol is next to her now. “We have to get her out of there!”

“No shit!” Maria doesn’t have time to be sorry about snapping at her friend. She aims her gun on the cylinder, and fires the shot, then another. It takes three shots to break the glass, and the liquid spills all around them, and Maria manages to catch Natasha’s body a second before it falls on the floor.

Natasha gasps, she coughs up the water in her lungs, and gasps again. She holds onto Maria’s shoulders.

“You’re alive.” Maria whispers. “You’re safe.” she tightens her arms arms across Natasha’s small figure, and it’s only apparent now that the woman doesn’t have any clothes on, and she’s freezing.

Carol comes to support Natasha as Maria takes off her long trench coat, and drapes it across the woman’s shoulders.

Alarms start going on all around them, and Maria shares a concerned look with Carol.

“Can you walk?” Maria asks, looking at Natasha’s face. A weak attempt proves the answer as no. “Hold on.” Maria secures her sidearm into the holster. With one arm under Natasha’s legs, and the other behind her back, she starts carrying Natasha.

Carol spares them a look, but doesn’t say anything, for now.

-

Within an hour, the entire area is closed of by the police department. Two helicopters are flying overhead, shining their lights on the forest floor to find out if there are any more man made structures nearby. 

Maria walks towards the ambulance with a bottle of water in her hand. She didn’t leave Natasha alone for a moment until the reinforcements came and she was sure about their security.

“How are you feeling?” Maria asks, holding the bottle for Natasha.

“I...” Natasha looks up. She’s covered in a huge blanket, wearing Maria’s trench coat inside. “I don’t know.” she takes the bottle, and opens the lid after struggling with it for a moment.

“Oh my god this is delicious.” Natasha groans after one gulp and stares at the bottle.

“It’s just water.” Maria smiles. 

“I know but...” Natasha takes another gulp.

Maria is too amused to say anything. To her simple things like drinking water is common, something she doesn’t even register anymore. But Natasha is experiencing everything for the first time in almost eighty years, and seeing that feels magical to her. 

-

It’s all a step away from becoming a media circus. Maria’s face is on every news outlet, putting Rumlow into a police car. They get to him just as he’s about to leave the country. He makes bail the next day, which doesn’t surprise her at all, but at least he’s on house arrest until the trial. That’s all the media knows. There’s no mention of any of the things they find at the mansion, Fury makes sure of that. Right now, all the charges are about tax evasion. 

A statewide task force forms with Fury’s orders, looking into identifying all the bodies they recovered. They don’t disrupt them until they have more information, which means, Natasha is the only real survivor.

Fury interrogates Natasha for an entire day as Maria waits in front of the building. Apparently, ‘she’s too close to be objective’. She huffs at that and leans back to her car. It’s too cold to be standing like this, but Maria doesn’t care. She watches the building door for any movement.

Finally Natasha walks out, in full FBI gym attire, and Maria’s borrowed trench coat. How she pulls off that look, Maria has no idea.

“Hey.” Natasha nods as a greeting when she reaches Maria. “You’re still here.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Maria replies.

“No no.” Natasha tries to recover. “I just thought after Fury kicked you out of the room...”

“He didn’t kick me out.” Maria waves a threatening finger between them.

“Okay then, when he told you to kindly _‘get your ass outside’_” Natasha smiles.

“Well, I wanted to wait for you.” Maria straightens, taking a step closer to Natasha. “Since you’re my guest.”

“Now that I’m back...” Natasha takes a step closer too. “Doesn’t that technically make you _my_ guest?”

“Semantics.” Maria shrugs and they’re only a step away now. 

“You know, there’s one more good thing about finally having a body again.” Natasha smiles.

“What’s that?”

“That I can finally do this.”

Natasha gets on the tips of her toes, as there’s a considerable height difference between them now that she can’t fly, and lands a kiss on Maria’s lips. She feels Maria smile into it, then Maria’s hands are on her back, pulling her closer.

First drops of snow start falling around them, but they don’t notice. It’s too cold, but they can keep each other warm from now on.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! This kinda played like a movie in my head and I hope that translated to paper. I accept critism!


End file.
